The premier conference-vs-conference battle in college basketball is unquestionably the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which takes place each year in late November/early December. This year marks the 17th time that the

The premier conference-vs-conference battle in college basketball is unquestionably the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, which takes place each year in late November/early December. This year marks the 17th time that the challenge has taken place, and its slate of games was announced on Wednesday. It features a game between the two teams that may begin 2015 ranked No. 1 and No. 2 in the country, as the North Carolina Tar Heels will host a former ACC foe, the Maryland Terrapins.

Wednesday, Dec. 2 — Indiana at Duke, Louisville at Michigan State, Notre Dame at Illinois, Wisconsin at Syracuse, Florida State at Iowa, Penn State at Boston College

Of course, while all eyes will be on UNC/MD, there are still a ton of match-ups between some of the marquee programs in the sport, like Virginia/Ohio State, Indiana/Duke and Louisville/Michigan State. Television information will be announced at a later date, but all games will be on ESPN, ESPN2 or ESPNU.

Over the weekend, Sports Illustrated reported that on Tuesday the Big Ten Conference will formally announce that its 2018 tournament will be played in New York’s Madison Square Garden. If so, NYC will be the center of college basketball that week, as MSG will also be hosting the Big East tourney that year while across the river in Brooklyn’s Barclays Center the ACC championship will be played. They don’t call it the Mecca of hoops for nothing.

The Big Ten Conference will play its men’s basketball tournament at Madison Square Garden in 2018, according to multiple sources with direct knowledge of the situation. A formal announcement is planned for Tuesday.

Madison Square Garden will still host the Big East Tournament in 2018. The Big Ten Tournament will be held the week prior, with the Big Ten title game coming the Sunday prior to Selection Sunday. (The Big East Tournament will culminate on its traditional date, the Saturday night prior to Selection Sunday).

The move is part of Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany’s push to position the conference better in vital East Coast media markets. Rutgers and Maryland are playing their first seasons in the Big Ten this year, and Delany has identified a presence on the I-95 corridor as a key to the league’s future. The announcement doesn’t come as a huge surprise; Delany had made clear how much he coveted New York, especially Madison Square Garden, as a showcase to the league.

The presence of the Big Ten Tournament in New York in 2018 will make the city the heartbeat of college basketball for more than a week. The ACC Tournament begins a two-year run at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the 2017 and ’18 seasons. With the Big Ten Tournament running the week before Selection Sunday, and the ACC and Big East Tournaments running simultaneously up to college basketball’s selection day, New York will become the sport’s hub.

The one potential drawback for the Big Ten is the timing of the tournament. It could create an awkward issue for Big Ten teams, as there will be an 11-day gap between the final Big Ten Tournament game and the start of the NCAA tournament

“Our coaches and ADs both felt it would be an enhancement to the game in today’s world,” Swofford said. “It adds more possessions and potentially would speed up the game.”

Swofford said league coaches submitted the proposal to the athletic directors during the spring meetings, and the athletic directors embraced the idea. The ACC would give its feedback on the use of the 30-second shot clock to the men’s basketball rules committee.

“That’s where the game is headed,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon told ESPN’s Andy Katz at the NBA draft combine in Chicago. “We want to be ahead of the game. We want to provide data and see what it’s like.”

The ACC is the first conference to tinker with the 35 second shot clock, which has been in place since 1993-94.

It’s hard to imagine that many college basketball players have been better than Duke’s Jabari Parker this year. One of those players, N.C. State’s TJ Warren, topped Parker in voting for the ACC’s Player of the Year.

For all the attention Parker received this year, Warren led the conference in points per game about as quietly as he could, averaging an insane 24.8 points per game on the season, which was third nationally. He also pitched in 7.1 rebounds per game, which was eighth in the conference.

As was breifly mentioned last week, the ACC, outside of No. 1 Duke, is headed for a down year. As the season turns to December this week, just one ACC team is ranked compared to three teams from the Mountain West Conference. Who would have ever thought that was possible?

Thus, the question for the conference right now is: what’s beyond Duke?

The Big Ten, which won the event for the first time last season, boasts five ranked teams and at least seven NCAA tournament quality teams.

Monday night, the ACC took the first step to recovering the event’s title as Virginia knocked off No. 15 Minnesota 87-79, on the road. Relying on 10-for-13 shooting from deep, the Cavaliers were able to beat a Golden Gophers team that had previously defeated North Carolina.

While the win was a minor victory for the conference, it served as a major one for what had looked like a weak Virginia team.

From The News & Advance:

“This is big,” said Mike Scott, who let out a huge yell after completing the three-point play. “A lot of people probably thought we were going to get blown out of the gym, especially looking at our Maui tournament where we only won one game. I think people had a lot of doubt in us.

“But we just came out and played hard. Transition defense was killing us in the first half, but in the second half we were able to get back and make them play against our half-court defense.”